Most "online" AI detectors send you to a Chrome Web Store listing, a desktop installer, or an email modal before the first scan even runs. TextSight is the website. Open app.textsight.ai in any modern browser on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, or Android, paste up to 5,000 characters, click Scan, and the same classifier paid users run scores your text in place. No download, no extension permissions, no app store gate, no version of the product to install. The free online tier loads on locked-down school laptops, library terminals, work machines with sideloading disabled, and phones over a cellular connection. Three scans every day at 5,000 characters each, sentence-level highlights and Authenticity Score in the same result panel, and no email field anywhere in the flow.
The keyword gets used loosely. Many tools branded "online AI detector" still demand an install, an extension, or an account before they actually scan your text in the browser tab.
There is no desktop app to download, no mobile app to fetch from an app store, no required browser extension to install before scanning. The detector renders inside app.textsight.ai as a regular web page. The text input, the Scan button, the result panel, the sentence-level highlights, and the Authenticity Score all live in the same tab. Closing the tab is the entire uninstall path.
A browser extension asks for "read and change all data on every website you visit" before it can scan selected text. Most corporate and school IT departments block that permission by default, which is why the extension-based detectors fail on managed devices. The online tier sidesteps the permission prompt entirely because no extension is installed.
app.textsight.ai is the only address. Same URL on a Mac, a Windows laptop, a Chromebook, a Linux desktop, an iPhone, an Android phone, an iPad, or any tablet with a browser. The UI is responsive, so the layout adjusts to the viewport without a separate mobile site. Switching devices mid-task is a tab close and a tab open, not a re-install.
The multi-model classifier runs on TextSight servers and returns a result over HTTPS. That keeps the browser bundle small, the scan fast, and the model up to date. The trade-off is that the detector needs internet access to score; there is no offline scan mode, and a dropped connection surfaces a clear error rather than a misleading partial result.
If the browser can render a website, it can run the detector. The list below is the practical compatibility surface in 2026.
Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, Brave, Arc, and Opera are all tested. Anything from 2023 onward with modern JavaScript and CSS support renders correctly. The site is built mobile-first, so the desktop layout has more room rather than being squeezed into a phone-sized container. The detector itself does not depend on any browser-specific API.
Safari on iPhone and iPad, Chrome on Android, plus Samsung Internet and Firefox Mobile. The result panel adapts to portrait viewports so highlights stay readable on a phone screen. Paste from the system clipboard works the same way it does on desktop. No native app to install, no app-store gate, no separate sign-in flow.
Managed devices that block installers, sideloading, and extension installs still load websites. The detector works on a school-issued Chromebook in managed mode, a hospital workstation, a coworking hot-desk machine, a hotel business-center PC, or a library terminal. The only requirement is open internet access to app.textsight.ai through whatever filter or proxy the network runs.
The page is light enough to load over a phone's 4G or 5G connection. An 800-word scan request and the returned result panel total under 200 KB on the wire after the initial page load. Useful when you are reviewing a deliverable from a coffee-shop network, an airport WiFi, or a tethered phone hotspot rather than a dedicated workstation.
The classifier is too large to ship to the browser and run locally with reasonable speed. The detector needs an internet connection to score, and that is the honest scope. A dropped connection surfaces a clear error and the scan does not count against your daily quota. If you need a fully offline tool, that does not exist anywhere in the category at production quality in 2026.
The TextSight Chrome extension exists for users who want inline scanning on any webpage, but it is a Starter-tier upgrade rather than a free-tier requirement. The free online flow runs end to end without it. If a result page tells you to "install the extension to see the full breakdown," it is not TextSight.
3 scans a day at 5,000 chars covers casual personal use indefinitely, all in the browser. Paid tiers add file upload, API, Chrome extension, and team features. Full details on the pricing page.
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Honest accounting of what runs on the online path. Same classifier, same scoring depth, same per-sentence evidence as paid. Only daily volume and the account-side features differ.
Counter resets at midnight UTC. Tied to your browser session and IP, not to an email. For a student this covers a draft, a revision, and a final pre-submission pass. For a writer it covers a typical day of deliverables. Generous enough that most casual users never hit it, and tight enough to keep the free online tier sustainable without an ad load on the result page.
Roughly 800 words, the standard college essay length. Long enough for an essay, a blog draft, or a sample chapter. Longer pieces split into sections and scan one at a time within the daily three-scan budget. Pro raises the per-scan cap to 10,000 chars and unlocks file upload through the same browser tab.
Green, yellow, red on each sentence so you see exactly which lines drove the score. Not paywalled, not summarised into a single overall percentage. Most competitor free tiers hide highlights behind a paid plan; TextSight ships them on the free online path because a number without evidence is hard to act on.
One paste returns the AI versus human score, a 0 to 100 Authenticity Score on the same scale paid users see, and a Plagiarism Risk read flagging stock phrasings, generic definitions, and citation-risky claims. Three reads on a single paste, no extra clicks, no second tool to open.
GPT-3.5, GPT-4, GPT-4o, GPT-5, Claude 3, Claude 3.5, Gemini 1.5, Gemini 2.0, Llama 3. Same multi-model classifier as the paid tier. No source-model gating where ChatGPT works on free but Claude or Gemini detection sits behind a paywall. One scan returns a score that accounts for every supported family.
No banner ads, no interstitial upsell prompts pasted over the highlights, no competing-detector advertising. The free tier is funded by paid plans, not by monetising attention on the result page. ZeroGPT lets you scan unlimited text in the browser but runs ads on the result; TextSight chose a smaller daily quota and a clean panel instead.
A native app or browser extension has its place, but for most one-off checks the website is the lower-friction tool. Four cases where the online path is the right call.
A library terminal, a friend's laptop, a hotel business-center PC, a coworking hot desk. None of these belong to you long enough to justify installing software. The website loads on any of them in seconds, runs the scan, and leaves nothing behind when you close the tab. Same flow as on your own device, no admin password, no install wizard.
School-issued Chromebooks, work laptops with sideloading disabled, hospital workstations, government-issued devices. IT policy on these usually blocks installers and extensions outright. The browser still loads websites, which is enough to run the free online tier end to end with no policy violation and no install request to your admin.
Spotting a suspect paragraph in a Slack message, verifying a quote your source emailed, sanity-checking a sentence a contractor sent on WhatsApp. The phone browser is open and ready. Pasting the snippet into a browser tab is faster than launching a native app, signing in, and pasting again. Three scans a day cover most ad-hoc mobile use.
Native apps and extensions add an install step, a sign-in step, and a permissions step before the first scan. The website has none of them. Open URL, paste text, click Scan, read result. That is the shortest path from "I have a paragraph that might be AI" to "here is the verdict and the highlights." Lower friction is the whole point of an online tier.
A genuine online detector is rarer than the marketing copy suggests. Here is how the major free detectors compare on install requirement, browser parity, and feature gating.
Free tier needs email signup before the first scan, then runs in the browser. Heavy in-product nudges to install the Chrome extension. Light ad-load on the result. Multi-model coverage limited to GPT-family with partial Claude support.
Enterprise login flow, no anonymous path. Web-only after sign-in, no required install. Multi-model coverage is strong but the entry barrier is the highest in the category, which defeats the point of an "online" search intent.
Shows a 2,000-character demo without signup, then walls the full report behind email verification. Mobile support is functional but not optimised. GPT-primary coverage, weaker on Claude and Gemini.
Free scan runs in the browser without signup, but the result pushes a Chrome extension install. Moderate ad-load on the page. GPT-primary, less effective on Claude or Gemini output.
Closest direct competitor on the browser-only axis. Higher character cap and unlimited scans, but the result panel runs third-party ads and sentence-level highlights are paid-only. Mobile layout is not optimised. Privacy posture is weaker because the ad network logs the visit.
3 scans a day at 5,000 chars, sentence highlights on free, Authenticity Score and Plagiarism Risk bundled, no ads on the result, no email on first scan. Responsive on desktop and mobile, no required extension, multi-model coverage across GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama 3. Fewer scans than ZeroGPT, but a clean result page and the same classifier paid users get.
Four steps from paste to verified result. No download, no extension, no account. The free online tier was scoped specifically for this loop.
The text input renders immediately. No login prompt, no install modal, no email gate. If you have used the detector before in this browser, the daily quota counter shows in the corner; if not, you start with the full 3 scans available. Works the same on Chrome, Safari, Edge, or Firefox.
Up to 5,000 characters. The character counter updates as you type or paste. Most college essays fit in one paste; longer pieces split into roughly six sections at the free cap. Pasting from the system clipboard works identically on desktop and mobile, no special permissions required.
The classifier runs in about six to ten seconds for an 800-word piece on a typical connection. The result panel shows an overall AI versus human score, the 0 to 100 Authenticity Score, the Plagiarism Risk read, and sentence-by-sentence colour highlights in one view. No interstitial, no upsell pasted over the result.
No single detector is the final word. If the score reads borderline, paste the passage into a second detector and compare. Treat the agreement of two independent classifiers as a stronger signal than either one alone. Two more scans remain in the daily allowance for re-checking after edits, and the counter resets at midnight UTC.
The main AI detector landing page with the paid feature set and the full multi-model classifier write-up.
Open AI detector →Anonymous quota, no email field, no account creation step. The detail page for the no-signup angle on the same free tier.
Read the breakdown →Accuracy bands on the free tier, ESL calibration, and the case that free really does match paid within rounding.
See the accuracy data →Full tier breakdown for Free, Starter, Pro, and Business. Annual billing saves 25%.
See pricing →3 free scans a day, 5,000 chars per scan, sentence-level evidence, Authenticity Score and Plagiarism Risk in the same scan. Same classifier as paid. Runs in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge on desktop and mobile.